Creationism and science?

Post by **BackTrak** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 4:50 am

There are some woods near my house. One day in the fall I was in the woods walking around with my kids. One of the kids spies a clump of rotting leaves about 5 feet up in a tree. They asked me what it was, and I told them it was elephant poop. There must be an elephant in our woods, and if we snuck around, might catch it.

For the next three years we tried to catch an elephant every fall. As it turns out, kids are just too damn noisy to sneak up on an elephant when there are leaves on the ground. Or maybe the elephant flew south already.

Point is, you just can't know for sure.

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:13 am

BackTrak wrote:QUOTE (BackTrak @ Jul 23 2012, 07:50 AM) There are some woods near my house. One day in the fall I was in the woods walking around with my kids. One of the kids spies a clump of rotting leaves about 5 feet up in a tree. They asked me what it was, and I told them it was elephant poop. There must be an elephant in our woods, and if we snuck around, might catch it.

For the next three years we tried to catch an elephant every fall. As it turns out, kids are just too damn noisy to sneak up on an elephant when there are leaves on the ground. Or maybe the elephant flew south already.

Point is, you just can't know for sure.

That's actually a great analogue for religion. I'm very sceptical about many church leaders fully believing their own garbage. Religion is a great tool for controlling masses of people and setting up authority structures... but do the priests, mullahs and rabbis truly believe what they are peddling? I bet in many cases they don't.

fuzzylunkin1 · Post by **fuzzylunkin1** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 8:20 am

Raven_42 wrote:QUOTE (Raven_42 @ Jul 22 2012, 11:39 PM) What does it mean to know anything.

It means a lot to know anything. In order to know, we must be self-aware. To know implies we observe and interpret information. We don't of course ever know about something 100%, because we have to be able to trust our observations. The sky is blue according to my eyes, but blue in itself is a vague description we use to describe the interpretation of light into our brain. We are capable of perceiving and picturing these images, rather than collect images for collection.

For all I know, I could just be a virtual machine. Perhaps the "physical" world as I see it is simply a representation of my parent's machine's interpretation of my hardware and environment. Imagine yourself completely cut off from all senses. What do you have left? I think, in a way, all self-aware, intelligent beings are virtual machines or emulated environments.

To know is to be able to consciously make decisions on information we observe, and it is intelligent to know what you don't know, so you can make decisions about what to learn. In this way, I think it is more intelligent to call oneself an Agnostic, in the sense that they admit they don't know, than to call oneself an Atheist or a Theist, in the sense that both Theism and Atheism are only social labels applied to our beliefs (or lack of beliefs) -- I don't think these labels are, necessarily, unnecessary, but I think they easily allude to the fact that we as a society prefer to separate ourselves based upon unimportant things.

dusanc · Post by **dusanc** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 8:26 am

fuzzylunkin1 wrote:QUOTE (fuzzylunkin1 @ Jul 23 2012, 10:20 AM) ...
For all I know, I could just be a virtual machine.
....

In your dreams fuzzy, in your dreams.....

Btw. I wonder why I'm not surprised that you chose to be analogue to a VM

Raven_42 · Post by **Raven_42** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 8:58 am

I think I was getting at roughly the same thing as you fuzz. My point was (putting a totally simulated environment to one side as a currently unreasonable doubt) there are some things in this (again, apparently) physical universe that can be reasonably known or unknown. I don't know the charge of an electron, but I'm fairly sure "what's the charge of an electron" is a valid question, one that I could get an answer to. I don't think "does [insert deity of choice] exist" is necessarily a valid question in the first place. Do you go about professing your lack of certain knowledge in spacial teapots, flying spaghetti monsters, fairies?

My point is, there are real frontiers of discovery, and I remain unconvinced that deity existence is one of them.

Edit: Charge on an electron - 1.60217646 × 10-19 coulombs. Now you know.

coopertronic · Post by **coopertronic** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:18 am

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:28 am

The bloke who coined the stupid term "god particle" has a lot to answer for. It was a publicity stunt to make his book sell better btw.

qqmwoarplox · Post by **qqmwoarplox** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 11:44 am

I'll edit that later to something serious x.x

MonAG · Post by **MonAG** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 1:54 pm

Raven_42 wrote:QUOTE (Raven_42 @ Jul 23 2012, 05:58 AM) Edit: Charge on an electron - 1.60217646 × 10-19 coulombs. Now you know.

Actually you can´t know. Planck says so.

MonAG · Post by **MonAG** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 1:55 pm

Adept wrote:QUOTE (Adept @ Jul 23 2012, 07:28 AM) The bloke who coined the stupid term "god particle" has a lot to answer for. It was a publicity stunt to make his book sell better btw.

Probably he will burn in hell.